The village of Leadhills originated as a community of lead miners working in the ore fields of the Lowther Hills on the border of Lanarkshire and Dufries and Galloway. The miners developed a strong sense of the need for both self improvement and mutual collective improvement. In response to this in 1741 a group of miners and the local schoolmaster founded a lending library to serve those in the village who wished to have access to books which they otherwise never could have.
The library was run on a subscription basis with borrowers required to pay an initial joining fee and an annual subscription but, more radically than that, requiring that before joining they were subject to approval by the membership.
The library still carries its collection of important books but it no longer allows them to be borrowed. The library is in the original single storey cottage where it was founded and is currently run by a group of volunteers. The library holds around 2500 books, a collection of other artifacts and a large collection of “bargain books ” the records of contracts between miners and mine owners which show the prices paid for a pound of lead ore or per fathom for advancement in non- productive rock in the search for new veins. This is the largest such collection in Scotland.
